Newer technologies are usually better than the older ones they replace. That truism is the foundation of what has pushed the computing industry to the heady heights it currently resides at, where today's flagship system is tomorrow's entry level. But every now and then something bucks the trend, and it appears Rambus, the long-derided memory stepchild of Intel, may be the best man for the job with the new Pentium 4s with HyperThreading — not that it matters much anymore.

Intel's latest i7205 (Granite Bay) chipset was put up against the “old” i850E PC1066 RDRAM chipset at Ace's Hardware, and the results were pretty interesting. Here's a quick snippet from the article:

When you look at all the benchmark data above, it is clear that something very interesting is going on. Granite Bay has it all: slightly higher bandwidth than the fastest available 32 bit RDRAM channels, and up to 25% lower latency than the i850E and Rambus combination. Still, this fat 1005 pin chipset with its ultramodern memory controller is not able to beat the old i850E chipset with PC1066 RDRAM. Look at the table below, which summarizes the benchmarks above.

ERIC'S OPINION
That RDRAM is a bandwidth monster is no surprise to anyone, as the serial memory technology has been blasting away at DDR for years using numbers from popular benchmarks like SiSoft Sandra to show that RDRAM really is king 'o the hill. Too bad that impressive memory scores rarely translated into giant application score leads over conventional DDR, and that appears to still be the case — to a point. Ace's numbers indicate that the i850E platform is indeed faster, in some cases up to 19% faster, but most benches show performance benefits in the single digits. Coupled with the continued high cost of PC1066 RIMM's, as well as a lack of very high density RIMM's, this last hurrah from Rambus rings a bit hollow and shows just how the “best” memory technology went horribly wrong right from the start.

What's surprising in this is that Granite Bay isn't performing as well as expected. The new dual-channel DDR should have the best of all worlds: low latency, high bandwidth, cheap module cost, and high available densities. Apparently, though, the Granite Bay implementation brings out a few flaws in DDR itself, namely poor write performance when interspersed with reads. RDRAM better controls the process and allows more effective bandwidth usage, nullifying some of DDR's latency advantage.

The irony in this whole situation is amazingly thick. With the advent of HyperThreading, bandwidth is becoming the commodity for Intel's Pentium 4, and what better to provide it than RDRAM? If only Intel had waited a year to introduce RDRAM instead of cramming it down everyone's throat at the Pentium 4's introduction, DDR might've been relegated to the dustbin already. Instead, consumer and OEM revolts turned the tables so far around that future Intel roadmaps make almost no mention of RDRAM. In the meantime, Rambus shares have tanked and the company is pursing the networking equipment market instead. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

My views on Rambus as a company are pretty well documented here, so it goes without saying that I have absolutely no sympathy for them. They could've had it all, but they wanted more, and they wanted it all up front. They were heavy-handed with consumers and manufacturer's alike, and Intel's pushiness made enemies in all corners. That we might be denied the “best” solution for future bandwidth needs because of the foregone greed merely compounds the situation.

USER COMMENTS 17 comment(s)

Not Surprised at the Results…(10:40am EST Mon Dec 23 2002)

Implementing a dual-bus DDR memory scheme is an enormously complex task, and it could easily take a while to get things right – just take a look at nVidia's nForce line.

The original nForce wasn't a standout performer, but the nForce 2 is showing a lot of promise as being the performance chipset for AMD-based systems.

I expect the next iteration of Granite Bay – whatever it'll be called – will fix a lot of the kinks that have been discovered…

– by K. Adams

Keep on waiting?(11:55am EST Mon Dec 23 2002)Why wait even longer for something that is going to end up being just as costly as RAMBUS?I am going to go ahead and pick up a PC1066 compatible motherboard and let everyone else wait for Dual DDR.(And let's see who ends up paying more for the same quality and speed!) – by John M

Not quite(12:37pm EST Mon Dec 23 2002)Dual DDR isn't that expensive. The A7N8X is only $150, and the RAM sticks are getting cheaper. – by buster

RAMBUS, Inc..(1:11pm EST Mon Dec 23 2002)…is just another example of a greedy company with a great technology that works so hard to make it unmarketable. I know they want to be paid for their invention but gawd, loosen the screws! A dollar or a euro times 10 billions is better then a dollar times a million – and then wasting it on legal staff. – by UrGeek

John M(1:16pm EST Mon Dec 23 2002)You obviosly haven't looked at the prices of Rambus memory lately. Assuming you want at least a gig of memory, you quickly end up spending a ton of money. Yes it's faster, but you pay. Wait for the next gen dual ddr boards, and the performance gap will wither.

Depending on use, DDR is still faster for the same money. Let's both try to manipulate the same 1400 MB Photoshop file on a DDR budget…

1066 rimm 512 MB $245PC2100 512 MB $96

Let's put 2 GB on a board to handle the above file, and you spend $600 more. – by Etcetera

Etcetera(1:31pm EST Mon Dec 23 2002)Wait a second sir!You took the prices for PC1066 to compare against PC2100??????If we want to really get down and compare prices fairly we need to use sticks that are comparable in speed AND quality.PC2100 has about the same specs as the RDRAM PC800. Look up those prices first and then you can talk to me about the quality and performance.Sure – I agree that RAMBUS has a problem with reputation but it is still a quality solution and the price is not that much higher. (And I really think that DUAL DDR might pass the RDRAM in price) – by John M

S L O W L Y(3:21pm EST Mon Dec 23 2002)Let me say it again but slower – PC2100 is not even close to being equivalent to PC1066 memory. It is like comparing apples to grapes. (If I give you four apples for four grapes will we be even?)But I will just let this one slide off into oblivion since it does not really matter.But RAMBUS still wins on the specs and the prices will not be all that much different if you buy an OEM machine. :o)– by John M

so we would be even if you gave me 4 grapes in exchange for my 4 apples. – by buster

Go to the top and read the article again(3:29pm EST Mon Dec 23 2002)If you read the article above you will see that the Dual DDR has some “problems” performing at a level that RDRAM has been at for a while. It cannot perform at the levels it should because of it's inability to handle writing interspersed with reading operations.All I am trying to point out is that it will take more money to get dual ddr to be able to perform at the level that RDRAM has already achieved.The performance crown is still worn by the RDRAM no matter how unpopular they are.(SUBJECT TO CHANGE :o) ) – by John M

John M(6:04pm EST Mon Dec 23 2002)I bet the next gen boards will solve some of the problems of Dual DDR. Yes RAMBUS is king when it comes to memory performance, but not by much.

Another thing to consider: Most of the new boards come with onboard USB 2.0, Firewire 6 channel sound, and AGP 8x. Most of the old 850e boards do not include these features (at least on the Dual XEON side, not sure about single processor)

I'd really like to see a comparison between the I-7505 (Dual Xeon Dual DDR) and the 860 (Dual Xeon Rambus (800 only)).

If you want to run the new 533 xeon, you have to use a 7501 or 7505 chipset. – by Etcetera

Now we just need a Granite Bay board that will clock the memory bus to 200.

PC3200 is available and some DDR motherboards will actually let you crank up the bus to 200. Intel is going with DDR400 in 2003 – when is the next increase in RDRAM bus speed?

Also1GB PC2700 ECC = $450 1GB PC1066 ECC = no such thing

And we have always known the RDRAM is faster. Most of us just didn't like getting reamed with a 400% premium for a 20% speed advantage. Now with dual channel DDR coming close to what RDRAM can do I can thumb my nose at RamBus and not buy any more of their memory. The last few years were tough on people that buy workstations with lots of memory. Giving money to such an EVIL company really didn't sit well with me. I really don't care that it is cheaper now – I can comforably run DDR the few percent slower for a year. A faster processor bought with the saving over RDRAM will erase it's slight advantage.Managed to only buy 7 RDRAM workstations and hope to not buy any more. – by PRISM tech

Ok – I changed my mind(1:45pm EST Tue Dec 24 2002)Due to the strong feelings of folks who have more experience in this field than I do I decided to wait for a few more improvements on the Dual DDR and give up on the RAMBUS PC1066.I will say again that as of this moment I still feel that RAMBUS is the current leader in performance. But I do see from the strong feelings of the other posts in this subject that Dual DDR is very close to overcoming RAMBUS.Thanks to those who shared some good points in this subject. – by John M

Why arent you the spinmeister?(11:51am EST Fri Dec 27 2002)Ah yes, those bastards at rambus, acting like capitalists…how dare they try to become the #1 memory company! Shame on them for doing whatever they could to corner the market.

And those even bigger bastards at intel, trying to “shove” a new technology “down peoples throats” a year before it was truly beneficial. Damn them for trying to lay in a new platform RAM technology so it'd be in place when the processors that would makes best use of it came about.

Why, we should have stayed on VL-BUS for another year or so as well, I mean, why have PCI motherboards kicking about when those PCI video cards finally came about. After all, PCI was an engineering abortion and completely unnecessary, right?

So Ricky, you're penning under the name “Eric” these days…your floral anti-intel fanboy crap comes through loud and clear… – by Big Bob